Gates’ Plan for Post-Gadhafi Libya: Don’t Get Involved

According to a very tired-looking Defense Secretary Robert Gates, the “political objective” of the U.S. for Libya remains the end of Moammar Gadhafi’s regime. But Gates took extra special effort at a House hearing on Thursday morning to emphasize that he wants no part of whatever comes after Gadhafi — least of all a U.S. presence on the ground.

There may be CIA operatives in Libya now making contact with the opposition. But Gates told the House Armed Services Committee repeatedly that there will be no U.S. ground troops in Libya “while I am in this job,” calling it a “certainty” that President Obama wouldn’t authorize their deployment. His main message was that the U.S. is giving up offensive operations in the war and moving into a supporting role now that NATO is running it.

A “preferable” option for getting rid of Gadhafi, Gates speculated, was that “someone from his military takes him out and cuts a deal with the opposition.” But neither the U.S. nor NATO, he testified, would take military steps to topple Gadhafi. That is, if you don’t count the messages they’re sending into Libya from the Commando Solo special-operations aircraft and other platforms to get Gadhafi forces to defect.

And the less the U.S. does in a post-Gadhafi Libya — however that would come about — the happier Gates will be. After Rep. Dave Loebsack of Iowa issued a stern warning against nation-building in Libya, Gates quickly added, “I fully agree.”

The challenge of governing Libya after Gadhafi goes is a daunting one, in Gates’ telling: balancing tribal interests and weaving together a coherent nation. Those tribes will play a “major role” in any future Libyan politics. Hmm, what costly, long wars already fought by the U.S. military does that sound like?

Indeed, Gates gave evinced the faintest confidence that the Libyan rebels would succeed in toppling Gadhafi. The opposition “is a misnomer,” he said, “very disparate, very scattered,” with each faction possessing its own agenda, and militarily “lacking command and control and lacking organization.” No wonder he doesn’t want the U.S. involved in helping it rise to power, or govern, reminding legislators of the “enormous human and fiscal cost” of the nation-building campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan. If the opposition wants training and guns, “someone else” can provide it, he said, not U.S. forces.

Before the Libya war began, Gates pointed out the difficulties and the costs associated with it. Accordingly, before the House panel, he defined the campaign “narrowly,” saying the political objectives of keeping loyalist aircraft out of the sky had been met, and along with protecting civilians, the residual military task would be for NATO keep it going.

Trouble is, Gates was as clear as mud about how the war ends if one of Gadhafi’s commanders doesn’t overthrow the Libyan dictator. He said it was hard to imagine how Obama would tolerate Gadhafi retaining power, even though regime change isn’t a military mission. Legislators of both parties were incredulous at that presentation of the U.S. goals. Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have another chance on Thursday afternoon to make a more convincing case to the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Gates came to the Pentagon to extricate the U.S. — however slowly — from one seemingly endless war. As much as he signaled his desire to limit the U.S. role in Libya, he may be ending his tenure this year with the U.S. military slipping into another one.